The courts in Ouagadougou, capital of Burkina Faso have convicted and sentenced two terrorists from the Ansar ul Islam militant group to 20 years in prison, in the first trial of its kind in the country.
The two terrorists aged 38 and 29 belonged to the seditious group formed by popular Islamic preacher Ibrahim Dicko, said to have passed away in 2019.
They acknowledged charges levelled against them. They agreed that in 2018, they attacked a school in the central region and set it ablaze because they believed the school’s teachings were contrary to Islamic law. In addition to their sentence, the court ordered them to pay $7,000 in damages.
This is the first hearing of the anti-terrorism court. The judges examined ten files concerning acts of terrorism by terrorists in the region. One of the cases concerned two Burkinabè accused of having committed attacks against the Minusma and the Malian armed forces in northern Mali.
Three days ago, the national armed forces repelled an attack by armed individuals in the village of Tankoualou, Komondjari province, Eastern region resulting in the death of three terrorists. Burkinabe soldiers recovered two motorcycles, several cans of gasoline, mobile phones and other documents. The terrorists who fled tried to rustle some cows from the village.